"That's all well enough," I said, "but I don't see why you and Babberly should be expected to get the Government out of a hole. In fact it's your business to keep them in any holes they fall into." "Under ordinary circumstances," said Moyne, "we shouldn't, of course, stir hand or foot. We'd let them stew in their own juice. And I may tell you that's the line Babberly thinks we ought to take. But I don't know. If there's any truth in these rumours, and there may be, you know, it seems to me that we are face to face with a very serious business. Party politics are all right, of course; and I'm just as keen as any man to turn out this wretched Government. They've done mischief enough, but--well, if there's any truth in what they say, it isn't exactly a question of ordinary politics, and I think that every loyal man ought to stand by--" "If there's any truth in the rumours--" I said. "The country's in a queer state," said Moyne. "I don't understand what's going on." "If the people have got rifles," I said, "they're not likely to give them up because you and Babberly tell them to." "Babberly says there's nothing in it," said Moyne, doubtfully, "and her ladyship agrees with him. She thinks it's simply a dodge of the Government to spike our guns." It is curious that Moyne cannot help talking about guns, even when he's afraid that somebody or other may really have one. He might, under the circumstances, have been expected to use some other metaphor. "Cook our goose," for instance, would have expressed his meaning quite well, and there would have been no suggestion of gunpowder about the words. "I don't see," I said, "how you can very well do anything when both Lady Moyne and Babberly are against you." "I can't--I can't, of course. And yet, don't you know, Kilmore, I don't know--" I quite appreciated Moyne's condition of mind. I myself did not know. I felt nearly certain that Bob Power had been importing arms in the _Finola_. I suspected that Crossan and others had been distributing them. And yet it seemed impossible to suppose that ordinary people, the men I lunched with in the club, like Malcolmson, the men who touched their hats to me on the road, like Rose's freckly-faced lover, the quiet-looking people whom I saw at railway stations, that those people actually meant to shoot off bullets out of guns with the intention of killing other people. Of course, long ago, this sort of killing was done, but then, long ago, men believed things which we do not believe now. Perhaps I ought to say which I do not believe now. Malcolmson may still believe in what he calls "civil and religious liberty." Crossan certainly applies his favourite epithet to the "Papishes." He may conceivably think that they would put him on a rack if they got the chance. If he believed that he might fight. And yet the absurdity of the thing prevents serious consideration.